Friday, August 21, 2015

because once you are Real you can’t be ugly by Teresa Robinson

{A note from Beth: from May through August 2015, I am featuring some delicious guest writers here on the blog as I recover from pregnancy and birth and adjust to our new family rhythms (find more details here). Enjoy!}

art by Teresa

To be
yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the
greatest accomplishment. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The
initial response to Suffering {emotional overwhelm, betrayal, pain, delays,
slander, distress, death} is Denial:personal
resistance to avoid acceptance. We slam the door in its face upon arrival
and deny its very existence. Then as we stand braced against that closed door,
we immediately commence racking our brain for reasons to explain {blame}:

Why
did this happen?

What
did I do?

What
didn’t I do?

Who
caused this?

Who
must pay?

Questions
asked to serve as white noise in the surreal, soundless emptiness that follows the thundering
noise of our life as it slams into the brick wall of suffering. We instinctively
wrap our-self in the faux comfort and rationalization that our suffering is
“unexpected” — that it is not that bad, that we are not as bad off as
{fill-in-the-blank}.

The
pounding continues within this tailspin of pretending to control the suffering as we move into Denial — as we
self-medicate by increasing the passionate intensity of our questioning. Until
our emotions escalate and converge — angrily demanding a plan be devised to
resolve the question of:

How
will I survive this?

Anger
stands waiting on-deck, shape-shifting as visceral blame, stoic indifference and
impassioned busyness. All the while mauling us from within as we isolate
our-self from anyone whose presence would threaten this inner processing; secretly
blaming them for abandoning us in our time of need.

Then
the circular frustration of Bargaining — if-only’s and when-oh-when’s? — it rages as we enter
the eye of the suffering storm within us … Shoulda, woulda, coulda scenarios
that somehow would have spared us from this turmoil.
Bargaining with our-self, believing:

I need to prevent this from happening again.

Cue
Hopelessness and Depression because Suffering is not something we want to accept — and yet we futilely
seek a means of avoiding it. Even as we know there is nothing we can do about
it; even as we desperately seek guarantees and solutions and someone to carry
the blame. Suffering is part of living. There are guarantees or deals to be
made.

We
circle back to Denial because
we desperately want safety, some sort of a powerful force field, a razor-wire
fence — a boundary Suffering cannot cross.

It doesn’t happen all at once, said the Skin Horse. “You
become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who
break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally,
by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes
drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things
don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to
people who don’t understand. — Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

The safety is being Real. Denial and
resistance merely intensify suffering.

The reality is: bad things happen — a lot. Our {living}
includes suffering and hardship in varying levels every single day.

Being
Real facilitates Acceptance. The space where we can exhale, pull away from our
intercourse with paranoia, and open the blinds of our heart to see the light of
Truth. The space we hold for mourning the loss caused by suffering, and for
love to comfort us; to be sustained with each inhale and exhale.

Let us allow
suffering its place; liberating us from the loss of energy and vision. Let us
allow our flailing to serve us — strengthening us as we become Real.

Teresa Robinson aka stargardener believes each day is a
canvas awaiting the elements we decide have meaning. She maps her way through
with torn bits of paper, words of found poetry and splashes of paint and ink;
posting field notes to Right Brain Planner and on Instagram.

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“I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it.” ― Brenda Ueland